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Remember to put a hat on your SUNROOM Avoid glass ceilings if you don't want to feel like a hothouse flower.
Planning to add a sunroom to your house? Great! Just don’t forget to include a nice, solid roof, say experts, who advise that natural light is not an unmixed blessing. Whatever your definition of a sunroom – and they vary widely – these heavy-on-glass living spaces are among homeowners’ most popular remodeling projects. According to the National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI), a sunroom is the fifth most-popular remodeling project after things such as kitchen and bath makeovers. Approximately 500,000 sunrooms are built or installed annually. And, according to NARI statistics, they’re a good investment, returning 70 to 110 percent of their cost at resale – depending, of course, on quality and design. Mostly, it is older people who want them. A study by the American Society of Interior Designers showed that prime buyers of sunrooms are aged 40 and up. Is that because older homeowners can more likely afford a sunroom? Or is it because twenty-somethings prefer to be out in the sun, while 40-and-ups are more content to sit behind a glass wall and look at it? The study didn’t say. According to designers and architects, the popularity of sunrooms is just one expression of a long-term architectural trend emphasizing natural light. It’s the same trend that, years ago, gave us picture windows and skylights and, now, gives us McMansions with walls of massed windows. (For those on budgets, there are halogen light bulbs that produce a reasonable facsimile of natural light.)
But "daylighting," as it is called, is also a created desire. Government regulations now require schools and other public buildings to go "green" by taking advantage of passive solar heating via windows. And the construction industry has hyped the benefits: Some studies claim that students do better with natural light and that office workers may be more productive, but that research is not universally accepted. Because natural light is popular, says Chestnut Hill architect Stan Runyan, many homeowners conclude that more is better. So, they go for glass everywhere – on the walls and on the ceilings. Bad idea. "We typically avoid glass on the roof and try to get it as much as possible on the walls," says Runyan, principal, Runyan & Associates. "And if the room is used both winter and summer, we try to orient the room to the south and include nice roof overhangs." That’s what Runyan designed for a Newtown, Bucks County, couple that wanted a covered area where family members could eat meals and look out over their backyard pool. The wood-shingled structure seems to be supported by classic marble Doric columns but, in fact, the columns are fiberglass shells that cover a steel frame. The rest of the enclosure is screened, but could also be glassed in, says Runyan. Call it a porch, if you like. Runyan doesn’t shy from the word. The point, he says, is that a sunroom or enclosed porch provides a halfway point between being inside and being outside. Ideally, that midway point combines the benefits of both – like sitting in a comfortable chair under a big oak tree. Whether the perimeter is screened or glassed, though, a solid roof is virtually always best, he says. It provides clear views and lots of light, but also shade. Runyan’s Newtown clients, he noted, "didn’t want to be cooked by the sun." For that reason, even sunroom dealers caution customers against too much glass. "If you put an all-glass structure on the south side of a house, the sun is going to be on it all day," says Tom Edger, manager of the Bensalem office of Patio Enclosures, a national sunroom chain. "In that case, we’d really counsel (the client) on the heating and cooling and venting issues." An all-glass sunroom might work fine on the north side of a house, he says, or in a south-facing location shaded by a large tree. But in direct sun…well, would you enjoy living in a terrarium?
A less-glass-is-more solarium addition recently won an award for Edger’s office from the National Sunroom Association. In that project, also in Bensalem, the company took an approximately eight-foot-wide slice out of the wall of a client’s north-facing kitchen, plus a three-foot bite out of the roof. The all-glass solarium bumps out of the contemporary house about three feet, but only adds about 24 square feet of floor space to the original house. The benefit, says Edger, is that it puts a lot of light into the kitchen, but no sun glare. Less glass also allows for more woodwork, notes Wayne architect Melanie Holmes. And that’s a good thing. "You can have wide vistas with glass," says Holmes, who is designing a porch to replace a client’s sunroom. "But well-designed rooms have a balance of solidity and openness." Aesthetically, she thinks, a room surrounded on three sides by multi-paned french doors is just about ideal. Architecture, explained Holmes, is partly about framing interior views of the exterior. As with a painting, both contribute to the final impression. "If the result is all view and no framing, the architect hasn’t done his job," says Holmes. Should a sunroom match a house’s architecture? It seems to be a matter of taste. "People on the Main Line are stuck in their ways," says Rob Lyon, director of marketing for Matthew Ryan Home Improvements, Feasterville. "They want it to look like it’s always been part of the house." Others, he says, welcome a contrast. Matthew Ryan sells a pre-fabricated vinyl room in a range of colors and roof styles. Generally, he says, ranch houses do best with shed-type roofs while people who live in two-story colonials often choose peaked-gable styles that seem to telescope out from the end of the house. "If someone wants something particular, like a knee wall, we have a host of different contractors who can do it," he says. Just remember to include a roof.
Home & Design June 2006
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"The human need for light is pervasive
across the board," says Philadelphia designer Ashli Mizell, who thinks the
desire for sunlight has peaked as we spend more time in windowless rooms,
sitting in front of computers. "Our bodies crave it. It elevates the
mood." Why else, she asked, would a corner office – with two walls of
windows – be considered such a corporate perk?
"You can tint the glass and put vents in the
roof but, if the structure isn’t sited properly, it’s going to be hot,"
says Edger. "You don’t want something that requires a lot of heating and
cooling."
Mark
E. Dixon
757 Upper Gulph Road
Wayne, PA 19087-2022
USA
610-971-0649